(Saint) Widow (January 31) (5th century) Saint Jerome, who was her guest for three years (A.D. 382), styles her “a model of widowhood and sanctity.” Under his direction she studied the Scriptures and drew around her a circle of Roman ladies, among whom were Saints Paula and Eustochium. We have no less than eleven letters addressed to her by the holy Doctor of the Church. Her mansion was in Rome, and was plundered by the Goths when the Imperial city was sacked by Alaric and his barbarians (A.D. 409). The Saint herself was savagely scourged for concealing, as the Goths thought, money and treasures which in reality had been already distributed by her among the poor. The Saint died from the effects of this ill-treatment about A.D. 410.